J. I THE i NEW rOKKI :lit r " , ' , ; , :: "' · /J ,\" . ; .-Þ - ... :: ::::: ; /\\\\\ *. o ...,,, 'Iß ' 0 0 . . 0 1\ . .". ",. THE TALI( OF THE TOWN Notes and Comment W E live in the midst of flux, needless to say. We notice around us changes in iconog- raphy, in the symbols whereby time's twin tyrant, style, announces itself. On television now, in comedy shows, a new stock skit may be seen; it involves t #0 men In bulbous white suits tread- ing floatingly on a surface that mayor may not be tricked out with sand to resemble the moon. We don't need to see the moon; all we need, in order to know instantly where we are, is the single prop of that (it turns out) hilari- ous stiff, shiny American flag. Yet it wasn't so very man) weeks ago that we watched with a we and fear the original performance: Armstrong's shadowy leg eerily floating down where no leg had been before, and Armstrong and Aldrin setting up housekeeping with flag, alu- minum-foil solar-wind catcher, scoops, and the seismometer that had the re- calcitrant BB in the level. Even then, come to think of it, it looked like a television skit, but we were too aston- ished to laugh. Astonishing also, at the time, were thosé first photographs of the earth seen entire from space-that cloud- swirled blue orb where we miraculously hang out. All too quickly, It has become an unpatented trademark, stamped on magazIne covers, corporatIon ads, news roundups on television-wherever a pretty bit of portentousness m i g h t help, like a Shakespeare quotation in the old Enear days. It is as if Columbus had returned to Spain and found everyone strumming guitars shaped like San Sal- vador. Discovery and publicIty are now nearly simultaneous; from prodig) to gimmick the decay time is perhaps two months If you notice church pamphlets and broadsides, you wIll see that the illustra- tions look more and more like "P ea- nuts." Charles M. Schulz, America's leading cartooning Christian layman, has engendered a race of anonymous imitators in the ranks of ecclesiastical publicity; the crucifix and the bearded shepherd have yielded to a new, evi- dently more potent image-that of the roundhedded, childlike Everyman with a worried look. That worried look, we suppose, contains the residue of Original Sin, or at least guilt, or at least angst, or at least the suspicion that one should stay off the golf course on Sunday morning. Speaking of golf, I)wigh t D. Eisen- hower can look down from his celestial game and see himself enthroned as a hero of the New Left. Eisenhower is In, Truman is Out. Truman invented the Cold War and foisted it on the guileless Russians, whereas Fisen- hower got us out of Korea and kept us out of Sue?, Indochina, Cuba-in- deed, out of everywhere except Guate- mala, Lebanon, and Little Rock. \Vhat the good General makes of hearing his praises sung hyoId mockers like I. F'. Stone we Cdn't imdgine; a qui77ical aloofness was always his style. On the streets, the maxicoats move in like autumn clouds, and the gay summer of minimal dress is over. Young people look lumpy, frumpy, swaddled; they are bespectacled in steel and scarved in oil rags. The proletarIan look swings. What a strange foe capital- ism must seem, so cheerfully voracious, letting Chdirman Mao reign as a Camp hero and making Socialist drearines,; a moment of fashIon Decadence has its resourceful turns. When nothing IS sacred, everything is. Flow, flux. Silent Sam T HE other day, as we were driv- ing across the T riho[ough Bridge, we spotted a cheerful, energetic-look- ing figure wavIng a bright-red flag to warn us of some road-repair work up ahead The figure, dressed in a brigh t- blue shirt and trousers, a red helmet and vest, and brown work shoes, was standing on a red-and-white striped pedestal and seemed altogether human until we got withIn twent} feet of him, when we realized that he was a robot. Back in our office, prompted by thoughts of the robot as the ideal construction-site employee (no wages, vacations, or fringe benefits; no sassy comments to pretty female mo- torists; no complaints ahout long hours or inclement weather), we phoned the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Au- thority and asked what they could tell us about the robot. "Yeah. Silent Sam. We've got two of them, and they seem very effective," the man at the T.B. & T.A. said, and then he gave us the name and phone number of Daniel Berne, the general manager of Queens Devices, Inc., Silent Sam's manufacturer. \Ve called Mr. Berne and accepted an invitation to come out to his office, in Long Island City, for a W '\ ( chat and an even closer look at the first robot on the T.B. & T.A.'s payroll Mr. Berne turned out to be a Brooklyn-born, wavy-haired, soft-spo- ken man in his fifties. Silent Sam turned out to have pleasant features (honest brown eyes, strong nose, quiet grin), fashionably long sideburns, and an olive complexion. "That's the color the first mudel came out In, and we decided it was a good way to keep it," Mr. Berne said. "Not black, not white-racially acceptable. He could be LatIn-American. \Vith his weather- bronzed face, he represents the typi- cal outdoor worker." Silent Sam ap- pears to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and he looks healthy. He is six feet tall, hut, thanks to his pedestal, which is eighteen inches high, and to